Welcome to our Worldbuilding Wednesday! This series, Mapping the Unknown, focuses on creating your own world, and how best to make it believable while still filling it with wonder. It's a limited series meant to give advice to budding writers and worldbuilders about the best practices in developing your setting!
When creating your fantasy world, deserts and wastelands offer an opportunity to introduce stark, dramatic environments that challenge civilizations, inspire conflict, and shape unique cultures. Deserts are places of extremes: burning heat by day, freezing cold by night, vast emptiness punctuated by patches of fertile land (e.g. oases), and a harsh beauty that demands respect.
When worldbuilding wastelands, deserts are more than stretches of sand. They can be badlands of jagged rock, salt flats under blistering sun, or endless plains of wind-scoured dust. They can be natural results of the environment, remnants of ancient catastrophes, the results of terrible curses, or all that is left after magic goes awry. They can isolate kingdoms, fuel struggles for survival, and serve as breeding grounds for resilient, resourceful societies. Whether it's a sea of dunes or a treacherous wasteland of cracked stone, deserts are rich with storytelling potential.
Deserts test the limits of life. They produce tough cultures that learn to adapt, nomadic or resourceful people who know how to find food and water in places where others would perish. In these environments, every resource—water, shade, shelter—is a treasure. They also serve as harsh natural borders. A vast desert can isolate kingdoms or protect sacred places. Its dangers deter armies and travelers alike, forcing them to prepare or face the consequences.
When placing desertic regions in your map, consider the climate and the origins of the region. Did it naturally occur? In this case, envision how this is possible - for instance, a region with high volcanic activity or a dry region where water, if there is any, is present only seasonally, or in small areas without flowing rivers that can feed the land. It could be a once-fertile region that suffered droughts after a river's course was changed by earthquakes or tectonic activity. Deserts tend to be inland, although badlands and rocky areas could conceivably stretch to the seashore.
A desertic region could also be the result of wild deforestation. And of course, if it didn't occur naturally, any sort of event could have triggered it - magic, curses, divine judgment, a rampaging monster, and so on. In this case, the origin of the region will likely shape both the legends that involve it, and the cultures living within. For instance, if the desert was formed by a curse, perhaps the people who live in it are seen as unclean or cursed by foreigners; they themselves, on the other hand, may see their culture as ultimate survivors, pitting themselves daily against an ancient curse - and not just surviving, but thriving. If the desert was formed by a magical mishap, perhaps magic still works strangely there, and the locals may be the only ones who fully understand its intricacies. Envision how the desert's origins would affect its inhabitants, its neighbors, and its legends.
In Teidar, to the west of the Craveth Elyar lies the unforgiving expanse known as the Broken Lands (which the native ogotai call Ulran). This vast, red-stone badland stretches for hundreds of miles, its landscape a maze of jagged cliffs, windswept plateaus, and deep ravines. Scorching sun during the day and bone-chilling cold at night make it a perilous place for outsiders. Yet for the ogotai, the nomadic tribes of tusked humanoids who call it home, the Broken Lands are a mixture of survival, tradition, and conflict.
The ogotai have developed a culture both resilient and unyielding, shaped by their harsh environment. They move across the Broken Lands in seasonal patterns, following the scarce resources that allow their survival. Waterholes and narrow fertile valleys hidden among the rocks serve as temporary sanctuaries, while towering mesas provide natural strongholds. However, survival often drives the ogotai to raiding and banditry. Unable to grow crops or establish lasting settlements, they rely on what they can take by force or barter. Their raiding parties used to strike into fertile Brightland, carrying off grain, cattle, and tools. Brightland eventually secured the passes used by ogotai raiders, and now some Ogotai tribes maintain uneasy alliances with Brightland’s border towns, offering valuable materials harvested in the rocks of the Broken Lands in exchange for food and grain they cannot easily grow.
More than perhaps any other geographical feature, deserts and badlands shape the cultures that live within them. The Aiel of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, or the Fremen of Frank Herbert's Dune, are good examples - but not the only possibilities, although it is likely that desert cultures must be, at least in part, warrior cultures - if nothing else, due to the scarcity of resources and the need to defend themselves, or to claim the resources of others.
To properly use badlands and deserts in your world, make the environment matter: deserts should feel dangerous. Food, water, and shelter are precious commodities. Show how these struggles define desert cultures.Think about how people would adapt to such an environment. Nomads might move with the seasons, while settled societies cluster around rivers or oases.
Deserts are also places where people lose themselves—literally and metaphorically. Introduce ancient ruins, buried treasures, and spiritual themes tied to isolation, antiquity, and endurance. And don't forget to introduce variety: not all deserts are the same. Use red-rock badlands, shifting dunes, salt flats, or volcanic plains to create different feelings.
Next week on Worldbuilding Wednesday, we’ll explore the plains. Until then, thank you for reading and I hope you find this useful!
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